Jumanji Festival Use Every Dumb Cliche In The Book To Explain Their All Male Line-Up
We still doing this?
Yesterday, hip-hop festival Jumanji unveiled the second round of acts on its 2018 line-up, following the announcement of headliners Lil Wayne and Metro Boomin back in January.
Six local artists were added to the Sydney and Melbourne event, bringing the total number of acts on the line-up to 13. There was just one problem: every single artist on the bill is male.
The festival was bombarded with criticism across social media yesterday, and one of the new line-up additions — Brisbane’s Midas.Gold — even called out the festival on Facebook.
Even more damagingly, it was pointed out that one of the local acts added to the line-up — MLBRN — had made homophobic statements on their official Facebook page during the marriage equality postal survey last year.
@jumanjifest .. This is the kinda local lineup y’all support? Need I say more? ??♀️ pic.twitter.com/g80uDTOiU2
— MISS BLANKS (@miss_blanks) February 26, 2018
Jumanji promoter Noque Touring issued a response to the backlash to Music Feeds yesterday afternoon, writing that while they attempted to book female acts this year, they were “either unavailable or not within our budget.”
“The organisers of the Jumanji Festival would firstly like to acknowledge and apologise for the lack of female artists on the festival this year,” they wrote. “It was always our intention to provide the best possible line-up of entertainment across both genders and every effort was made to secure both male and female acts for this festival.
“Several high profile international female artists were approached and were either unavailable or not within our budget. We opted to secure the best possible artists irrespective of gender that appeal to the Australian hip-hop audience and we are committed to delivering an amazing experience for our patrons.
“We have acknowledged the feedback online and will ensure there is a stronger female presence on our festival in 2019.”
Funnily enough, the festival even managed to hit three out of five points on feminist organisation Listen’s ‘Top 5 Cop Outs For Booking A Line-Up That Is Not Diverse’:
Jumanji have yet to respond to the controversy surrounding MLBRN’s homophobic comments.